Sotis vs. IANTD

[lv2dive]

I just got through one so far, but I have to agree it was interesting reading. Thanks for posting them here.

Time goes by all too fast - except when civil litigation is involved.

In this case, filed in July 2017, the wheel of justice is slowly grinding. What is the status?

Trial Date - nonjury - April 15, 2019
Pretrial Conference - March 12, 2019

Of interest are the depositions filed in this case for Tom Mount, Mark Fowler, John Jones, and Luis Augusto Pedro.

Collectively they provide an overview of both the case at hand, the workings of IANTD, the industry, and a backdoor view of the Horizon federal case.

IMO - several of the deponents were either poorly prepared or missed the plot of the event's structure.

As a group, they failed to wait until the question was complete, volunteered information, speculated, answered compound questions and generally failed to make the questioner be specific. Several alluded to docs not mentioned while responding to questions.

ANS- Mark Fowler, "Could I speculate a little bit?"

Q-Bayer, "Are notes or minutes of these meetings maintained?"
ANS- Mark Fowler, "There may be -- officially, no"​

None the less, if you are bored this weekend, the attached depos make interesting reading.

The full case history is available at The Florida Columbia County Clerk's site

https://tinyurl.com/ybkjsjyv

 

[Jack Hammer]

Pretty interesting reading. I liked Tom Mounts deposition.

 

[Miyaru]

I understood the accident happened on/after a non-training dive, and after successful completion of the course. Tom's deposition shows a whole different story.
No exam made, no final course dive done, but certification already sent in. And a request to revoke certification after the accident. Wow!

 

[CAPTAIN SINBAD]

So I have read through this incident in bits and pieces but can someone please help me understand what exactly went wrong? Was it unit failure on two different sets? Thanks.

 

[Superlyte27]

So I have read through this incident in bits and pieces but can someone please help me understand what exactly went wrong? Was it unit failure on two different sets? Thanks.

If you mean two different sets of brains, then yes.

 

[rjack321]

So I have read through this incident in bits and pieces but can someone please help me understand what exactly went wrong? Was it unit failure on two different sets? Thanks.

Both divers passed out and/or became incoherent after doing a 3rd bounce deco dive of the day to about 215ft. Sortis was on the deck of the boat and was revived. Stewart was still in the water at the time and drowned. The initiating cause of his loss of consciousness has not been determined. To date, the evidence (his shearwater log) strongly suggests it was not hypoxia. The rest of the story is noise and finger pointing.

 

[shoredivr]

Thanks to @Cert1967 for posting those transcripts. I have finished Mark's and it's obvious he did investigations for a living and also pretty clear why he left IANTD. I really respect him. I am about half way through Tom's and am far less impressed. I should point out that Tom has told me that I'm the most irresponsible person in Scuba for allowing people to discuss things such as this publicly. Welcome to the information age, grandpa. Not sure that I can deal with the others today, but I have downloaded all four.

On pg 61 of Mr Mount’s deposition, there is a mention of a diver called Cheryl Berman. Why is that name familiar?

 

[Kay Dee]

Just a quick clarification re something I wrote in my previous post as I can see today it may not come out as I intended. So, sorry for any confusion as to my perspective.

That is, I meant to imply / should have written “………..rather pivotal re some of what is being discussed here.” The key missing words in my previous being ‘some of’ (what is being discussed here) as I realise that what I am alluding to has no bearing on the Sotis vs IANTD case itself, nor was it the reason given for IANTD pulling Mr Sotis’s and his company teaching ‘rights’ as it were (but is more to do along the lines of what The Chairman has said).

It doesn't appear Stewart had the prerequisite number of dives to start the hypoxic course. I can see why Sotis et al would not want to hand out a cert when the standards had clearly not been met.

 

[Kay Dee]

Both divers passed out and/or became incoherent after doing a 3rd bounce deco dive of the day to about 215ft..

Is the above correct; that is is there any evidence of Stewart passing out / becoming incoherent?

I thought it was just Sotis who did that once back on the boat, and that Stewart simply ''disappeared" from the surface (without any confirmation / indication of anything being wrong) prior to getting back on the boat.

 

[RainPilot]

He seemed to indicate OK then disappeared below the surface. The assumption of a LOC event is, in my opinion, a reasonable one considering all the variables. I don't believe there will be any definitive proof ever, but Occam's razor seems to slice this way.